Badman II: He's Back Again!
Release type: Freeware
Release date: June 13, 1996
Levels: 35
Author: PPP Team
Website: Bilou Homebrew's Blog
Related games: Badman, Badman III, 4 to Save Toon Land
Although the first Badman is a clean, entertaining game, it's with the sequel that the Badman series really finds its identity. All of the visuals are original, and indeed both clean and distinctive. All of the sprites, including the character, have received an upgrade. Then after the presentation ropes you in, you start to appreciate the scale of the thing.
The game includes sophisticated boss battles, involving moving and shooting villains and complex solutions. There are all manner of hidden secrets, including a warp zone. And finally we find the most clever credit sequence we’ve seen in years, calling to mind the Zelda inventory roll and all those NES instruction booklets that named and illustrated all of the game’s monsters and their personalities.
For all of Game-Maker’s limitations, Badman II is about as good a demonstration as you’ll find of its latent potential.
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|---|---|---|
| Badman | Badman II | Badman III |
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Contents
Boss Battles[edit]
Some PPP Team games were designed to have boss battles that weren't really a success, as a result of Game-Maker's limitation regarding monsters spawning. Badman II was initially supposed to be a boss-less game, and so it goes until you reach the Factory Zone. When Pype showed Pierrick his first work on Badman II (including Egypt, Bubble, Forest and a sketch of the factory level), Pierrick urged the creation of boss battles: "It needn't to be huge to be a boss, you know" he said. "In Mega Man 1 on the NES, all the bosses have the same size as your character, but you're trapped in a room until you defeat them and they take a lot of hits to kill".
That was possible to do: all I needed was the generation of a key monster after the final defeat and a door somewhere to open. The second level of the factory was thus dubbed "Arena" and introduced repeated encounters of increasing difficulty with the same monster: "Burner", which was a red-suit copy of the Badman sprite. To make the encounter interesting, it was needed to ensure that spamming the fire button would not be sufficient to kill Burner in a second. We just managed to translate the documentation related to power levels by then (actually, at the design of the Bubble Zone), so it was "enough" to have two type of movements, one where Burner attacks, but is vulnerable to Badman's shots, and one where he retreats but cannot be hit. The "death animations" were then used to build a "Attack-Retreat-Attack-Retreat-Attack-Die" cycle.
This power mechanism (a monster with high power kills monsters with lower power, two monsters of equal power cross each others unharmed) was then realised to have even more potential: if there was anything on the arena that Burner could "kill", it could be turned into a shot. A set of "seed generators" were then added at the top of the screen, producing small dots that can barely be noticed by the player, but turn into flames if Burner has the "retreat" power level. An additional "escape chimney" was added at the top-left corner of every arena to ensure they wouldn't be noticed when they turn into flames at the end of their dedicated path.
The multiple encounters allowed the team to increase the rate of the shots and mimmic the typical "boss-that-gets-angry-as-you-shoot-him-more" that couldn't be achieved otherwise.
It was clearly a milestone in PPP Team productions, and has been re-applied (possibly with small tweaks) in all the subsequent games, including Biokid,Badman III and Twinnbee Land. The "SkyBoy" encounter at the end of the game also reuses this technique, but places the door block on the arena (rather than on the "Overworld" castle) to avoid undesired exits that would reset Badboy's hit count, but not Badman's.
Story[edit]
PPP CLICKER DATABASE SHELL
USER: -BADMAN-
Missing...
- NAME: BINN
- FIRST NAME: Rubish
- PROFESSION: Justiciary
- AGE: 19 years
- Distinguishing signs: Wears a purple costume adorned with an "R", and a purple mask
- Current status: In EGYPT, remains of the GREAT PYRAMID, in the company of persons unknown.
- Address: 45 rue Software chez PPP
- CHANCES OF SUCCESS: 50%
Instructions[edit]
Move Badman with your keypad.
Fire with / and -
... and then collect the stars!
Duck with the down arrow.
And h to call for help (actually release a bomb for self-kill in the case you've managed to lock yourself and want to restart the level).
Look for the following bonuses
- Ace of Diamonds: Health
- Key card: Key
- Ace of Hearts: 1-Up
- Logo card: Badmobile (access to bonus level)
- Gun card: Upgrade shotgun
- Ace of Clubs: Bonus (500 PTS)
- Ladder: Ladder, pick with "p", drop with "d"
Credits[edit]
This game was made by PPP Team Software (95):
- Piet - Pierrick - Pypein
The Badman, Rubish Binn and the Badboys are original copyrighted characters by PPP Team. Free distribution and use of the game is granted. Production of derivative works without prior consent is forbidden.
Availability[edit]
Prior to this archive's online presence, this game was only available in small-scale distribution amongst the close associates of PPP Team.
Archive history[edit]
Along with several other PPP Team titles, this game was added to the archive on September 24, 2010. It was provided by Sylvain Martin, after contact through his blog and social media -- who in turn was located through a link on cly5m's Game-Maker page.
Links[edit]
Sites[edit]
Interviews / Articles[edit]
Listings[edit]
Misc. Links[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- Badman II (451.4 kB)
- Soundtrack:
- title song (228.5 kB)
- jingle/gameover/random techno (341.8 kB)
- Burner's Factory (119.1 kB)
- sky castle theme (221.7 kB)
- Kaktus Battle (Loufok Desert Zone) (128.9 kB)
